Buttnekkiddoodles

The Fall returns and so too does my annual early morning trek to Chicago’s Palette & Chisel Art Center for their 12 hour life drawing marathon. Even though I’m 35 years away from the last time I had to obey the seasonal call to the classroom and the Monday morning blues, I still like to begin the academic calendar year in auspicious fashion. Hence I rise at dawn to capture on paper, the daylong writhing and heroic posturing of half a dozen models, some of whom I’ve drawn for more than 6-7 years.

    

I’ll add more to this post once this toy posing as a computer, aka my iPad, decides to start performing again. After several Time Out Request and endless waits for Updates to kick in, I need a break.

    

I got in just over 11 hours of drawing on Labor Day. In general, it was a good day tho I had a couple drawings come up short. It’s interesting to me that most activities can wear me out as time runs on but my drawing strengthens the more I put into it. Long days generally invigorate me and I’ve never suffered from “writer’s fatigue”, repetitive motion, or carpal tunnel syndrome.

The day’s gear involved a ledger book, a Rhodia lined journal, some fountain pens, Platinum Carbon ink, and various nibbed Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens in several shades of grey.

Drawing ain’t dead.

This was an image I drew back in 1990 title “Penny Pitchers” and due to interest, I made a limited edition of 10 giclee pints using archival pigmented inks.

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Giclee Print.

signed: Darn

In to the Twin Cities for demos and the Minnesota State Fair. Packing plenty of drawing gear though I’ll be working in monotone, may regret that decision when I come face to face with the butter sculpture exhibits.

          

I’ve gone to the Minnesota State Fairgrounds previously, to the Spring Comic Con when that was the only event and it was held under the grand stands with the rest of the huge fairgrounds empty.  So to attend this massive festival when the grounds are swollen with    hundreds of thousands of people and livestock was transformative to say the least. I managed 11 hours over 2 days and only work and a need to return to Chicago are keeping me from another 20 hours there. Fried foods were King and got in line more than twice for examples of that fare, hot mini doughnuts and fried doughnut shaped croissants were good enough for second helpings if I had broken prior agreements with self. A highlight of my facestuffing was a moist, grilled pork chop on a stick; the first fatty bite was the booster that sent my buds into orbit. I missed out on a single onion, cut into a flower shape, battered, and deep fried with a blue cheese dipping sauce that would had commanded an hour long shady nap on the grass, harassed, I’m sure, by fat fueled dreams that collaged battered farm animals and varicose varmints of all sorts.

    

Drawn in a Rhodia lined journal, using Pitt Artist Pens, Pelikan M215 fountain pen, Faber-Castell Basic Black leather f.p., Sailor bent nib f.p., Platinum Carbon ink.